Afterlife
by Childhood Aspirations
Summary: The Doctor's 12th regeneration has come and gone. When he runs out of lives, he'll see the person he never thought he'd ever see again. This is going to be a really long oneshot, about a couple chapters. post DOOMSDAY.
1. Chapter 1

**Afterlife**

_By Childhood Aspirations_

Disclaimer: I do not own _Doctor Who_, any of the characters, or any dialogue that I borrowed.

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**Part One**

He floated through nothingness, which, considering what he'd just been through, was a blessing.

Wait…nothingness…

…Never mind. That's not a good thing.

That meant that…

"Rose? Rose, is that you? What are you doing here? How did you _get _here?"

"Doctor? _The_ Doctor? What are _you_ doin' here? How did _you_ get here?"

He grinned at her, the one thing about him that never changed, in spite of everything. "I asked you first," he pointed out.

Rose, for it truly was Rose, as much as the Doctor found it difficult to believe, cocked her head to one side and frowned at him. "You've regenerated again," she remarked. "You look younger than ever."

"Two regenerations, actually," he said lightly. "Didn't take as much time to run through them as I thought it would."

Her frown deepened. "But…that means that you're on your last life…so to speak."

Another cheeky grin. "More than a cat, but it seems they go faster."

"But Doctor, you still haven't told me what you're doing here."

He looked around. "Where's here, exactly, or do you not know?"

Rose cleared her throat. "Well… I suppose here is being used rather generally, as opposed to specifically, considering, ah, the obscurity of our surroundings."

At that point, he realized that nothingness had dissolved into something else, which explained when Rose meant by obscurity.

Succinctly, they were in a field. A meadow, actually, complete with a bright blue sky overhead that was littered with thick, fluffy white clouds, and green grass that was dotted with yellow daisies.

Odd.

Very odd.

"Huh." The Doctor looked around, taking in the few details that there were with apparent interest. Rose watched him carefully, and kept watching him until he finally became aware of it. "What? What are you staring at?"

"You," she said shortly. "Your head is bleeding."

He reached up with hesitant fingers and felt the gash running from his scalp down his temple. "Ah hah. So it is." The lightness was forced now, definitely, and Rose didn't have to be brilliant to sense it. She had traveled with the Doctor for a considerable amount of time.

She knew him well enough.

"What's going on? What happened to you?"

"Nothing," he said with a small shrug of the shoulders. She put her hands on her hips and he lifted his, palms out. "It's nothing, Rose, I swear. It's just…" He licked his lips and went back to studying his surroundings.

It was certainly easier than watching her.

"It's just what?" she demanded.

"Well, here's the thing; I think I just died." His brow furrowed in thought, as though he was confused about something.

Rose's mouth fell open. "You what? Did you just say you died?"

"Um…"

"You're the Doctor! You can't die! You can't! I won't let you! The universe needs you, Doctor!" She swallowed. "I need you." Her chin firmed after making the confession. "You can't die!"

He met her gaze seriously. "But you died, Rose. Why can't I?"

Her eyes nearly popped out of her head. "Are you saying you want to die?" she exclaimed.

He tilted his head slightly, as though sniffing the air. It was an action she'd grown accustomed to. He could feel things she couldn't, sense things she couldn't, and that gesture signified that he was doing just that.

It just so happened that it disturbed her even more now than it normally had.

"Like I said, I think I already did," he murmured. He squinted at the sky for a moment; when he turned his gaze back to Rose, he discovered that her eyes were filled with tears. "Aw, Rose, what- Don't cry now. You're not crying, are you?" He paused for a moment as those tears began streaming down her cheeks. "You are crying. Ah, why are you crying, Rose?"

"Why?" she repeated, her voice thick with emotion. "How can you ask me that? You're the Doctor, and now you're saying that you've died, and you don't think I should cry? If Sarah Jane were here, or Reinette, or Cleopatra, don't you think they would cry too?"

He frowned at that. "Cleopatra?" he repeated in puzzlement. "I only mentioned her once."

"Yes, but you called her Cleo," Rose sniffed. He grinned at her, but she was not amused.

Not by any stretch of the imagination.

"I can't believe it," she murmured, sitting down in the grass on the hilltop. He sat down next to her.

"Can't believe what?"

She shot him that you-got-to-be-kidding-me look. "That you're dead, you idiot," she said.

"Oh."

Rose gave a sigh of long-suffering and shook her head at him. "You're absolutely hopeless, you know that?"

Grin. "Doesn't really matter now that I'm dead, does it?"

She slapped him.

Hard.

"How can you be so bloody light about it?" she shouted. "You're dead! The Doctor is dead, and the world is going to collapse without you! You do know that, right? What are they going to do without you?"

He shrugged. "Go on with their lives the way Mother Nature intended, or what higher intelligence have you. Uninterrupted, not meddled with…" He winced and rubbed his cheek. "That hurt.

"The way Mother Nature intended?" she repeated, ignoring his complaints. "I thought Mother Nature intended for you to save the world from disaster." She raised a brow at him. "Isn't that the reason you exist?"

"Well… I don't know if I would go that far…"

"I would," Rose said quietly.

There was silence for a little while as they both gazed up at the clear blue sky.

"You know, Rose, you really don't have to worry about the world, when you think about it," the Doctor said finally.

"Why's that?" she inquired, frowning slightly.

"Because there's 12 of me out there in the universe right now, giving help where it's needed."

She stared at him blankly. _Blink, blink_.

"Time travel, Rose…?" he pressed. A look of understanding flooded her features.

"Oh, right." Pause. "How exactly does that work, again?"

Silence.

"Um…in a very complicated manner…?"

"Never mind. I don't want to know."

"No, you probably don't."

Rose grinned at him and lay back in the grass, closing her eyes. He watched her, studying her.

She hadn't changed a bit.

"Are you going to tell me how it happened?" she said abruptly, startling him out of his thoughts.

"What?"

She rolled over onto her side, watching him seriously. "How you died," she said solemnly.

"Oh, that. Well… Someone kind of pushed me down three flights of stairs, and then a bomb kind of went off in the building…"

Once again, her eyes were bulging. "Someone _kind of_ pushed you and a bomb _kind of_ went off? You never were one for straight talking, you know that?"

"What do you mean by that?" he demanded. She rolled her eyes and shook her head, apparently abandoning him as a lost cause. They stared at each other as the moments stretched onward. Neither said anything, but the silence wasn't uncomfortable.

Presently the Doctor heaved and sigh and flopped down, stretching out in the grass, mimicking Rose's pose.

"I don't know where this is, or what happened, but I think I like it here, Rose." She smiled at him. "Yes, I think I like it here…"

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_(A/N- Don't worry, there's more. Next I think we'll talk about what the Doctor and Rose have been up to and their feelings for what happened during DOOMSDAY. -C.A.)_


	2. Chapter 2

**Part Two**

"How long ago did you die, Rose?"

She gave a shrug. "Don't know, exactly. It's so hard to tell how much time passes here."

"S'pose you had a nice, long, full life. Did you marry Mickey, and have a family?"

Rose smiled, but her eyes were sad. "No, I never married Mickey, or anyone else. I just…I couldn't. It seemed wrong. There was nothing there for me."

"So no one to carry on the Tyler name?"

"Not from me, anyways. My sisters and my brother all got married though. Nice bunch of nieces and nephews. I died when I was 43. Car accident."

It felt so strange to be talking about how she died. The Doctor winced. "Ouch. Sorry." Rose chuckled.

"It was instantaneous, at least. Not drawn out. I wouldn't have liked that." She faced him. "I waited."

A chill went down his spine, though he couldn't have said exactly why. "Rose…"

"I know, I know. I know you said it was impossible, but we'd done the impossible before. So many impossible things we'd done, and I just couldn't…I couldn't give it up. I couldn't give _you_ up. I kept hoping, and praying that one day, something miraculous would happen, and poof! You'd be standing there, grinning at me."

"I'm sorry, Rose."

She shrugged again, trying to dismiss it. "I guess I knew it wouldn't happen, deep down, somewhere. I just wouldn't admit that it was true." Rose smiled at him. "But that's long in the past, isn't it? And look at us. Here we are, together again." She cocked a brow. "Find anyone else to take my place after?" The question was posed lightly, but there was a hint of sharpness underneath.

_No one could ever replace you, Rose. _"Martha. Nice girl. She got married not long after I regenerated again." She sniffed and he smothered his amusement.

"That's it? No one with you for the last life, for the home stretch?" Rose frowned. "That's sad."

He grinned. "Likely no one would want to be with me anyways. I believe I became a bit morose there towards the end. Not the sort of chap one would like to travel through all of time and space with."

"You, morose? Not sure I can picture that entirely."

"You wouldn't have liked it if you'd been there," he assured her, propping himself up on his elbows. "Ah…" He took a deep breath of fresh air. "It's so…different here, Rose. I don't think I've ever been in a place like this before. What's so different about it, Rose? Hmmm?"

"I, I don't know," she stammered, taken aback by the quick change of subject. "I don't even know why I'm here. I don't know why _you're _here either."

The Doctor eyed a patch of thick white clouds drifting by, easily distracted. "It's a bit odd that you're here, wherever here is," he murmured absently. "Seems like I'd be the one ending up in odd places, doesn't it?"

"S'pose," Rose said noncommittally. She smiled widely at him. "'Course, traveling around like you messes with everything. Anything can happen."

Anything… 

Yes indeed. Anything.

Presently he realized she was staring at him again. "Your head doesn't hurt, does it?" she asked hesitantly.

"My what?"

"Your head."

"Oh." He reached up and felt the gash again; it wasn't bleeding anymore. "No. I wouldn't think it would, considering." She grimaced, but didn't comment on his casual levity.

"How much time has passed since we were, well, you know...?" Rose inquired, glancing away from him. He squinted, calculating in his head. His eyes went wide suddenly and he sat straight up. "What is it?" Rose demanded, following his example.

"It's the TARDIS," he blurted out. "She's, she's-I, ah… I can't feel her in my head anymore. She just isn't there. She's gone." He sighed heavily. "I wonder what will happen to her now that I'm gone."

"Maybe Torchwood will find her and keep her safe," Rose suggested optimistically. He grunted.

"Yeh, if they happen to venture out into space deserts and canyons."

Her brows rose. "How did you manage to get killed falling down stairs and having a bomb dropped on you when you left the TARDIS in a, a…what is it again? A space desert?"

"We got separated," the Doctor said defensively. Rose giggled.

"That's one heck of a separation."

He gave her a light shove and she lost her balance, rolling down the hill, farther than he'd intended. "Sorry," he called, grinning in spite of himself. He remained where he was sitting, his mind grappling with this new emptiness.

For as long as he could remember, the TARDIS had always been there, a faithful presence in his brain, translating for him, prodding him gently, (and sometimes not so gently) feeling with him…

He would miss her.

Suddenly, the world tilted upside down crazily. He grunted, a delayed reaction, for Rose had climbed the hill, reaching the top at his back, and tackled him, for lack of a better term, sending both of them rolling down the grassy hill again, a tangle of arms, legs, and various loose garments.

When the incline finally leveled out, she was the one on the bottom and he was crouched on top of her. They stared into each other's eyes, each breathing heavily.

"You…you never told me…how many years have passed," Rose whispered breathlessly. Was it his imagination or was she staring at his mouth…?

"Years," he repeated, dazed. "A hun-" He never really got a chance to finish the sentence.

He wasn't sure whether it was Rose pulling his head down, or him lowering it by himself, but whatever he'd been going to say (he wasn't sure what it had been when he thought about it later) was cut off abruptly as his lips pressed against hers, and hers against his.

Strange… It feels as though lightning should be flashing 'cross the sky, thunder should be rolling, a wind should be howling, strong enough to carry us away. How can those clouds just drift by as though nothing has just happened?

The Doctor wasn't sure of the answer, but then, he didn't really need to know, at the moment.

By all accounts, he had a long, long time to figure it out.

And Rose was going to be there to help him.

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_(A/N- Well, there you have it! Sorry to end the fic with such a display of fluff, but I couldn't help myself. It wouldn't seem right to end it platonically. I realize this chapter is shorter than the first one, and I think this one is a little more random, but I kind of ran out of that particular line of inspiration. Anyway, hope you liked it anyway! Please review! Thanks! -C.A.)_


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